Creating Beautiful Aerial Embroidery Landscapes

I’m Victoria Rose Richards – I’m 24 and my full-time job is creating aerial embroidery landscapes of the British countryside. I fell in love with embroidery at university when I needed something to fill my free time between studying, although I didn’t start with aerial views but instead landed on it also by chance while doing one of my embroidery projects. Aerial views always fascinated me, with the mix of structured and random shapes, mis-matched textures, and natural and manmade elements all fitted and forced together to create what is so familiar to me. I grew up and still live in an area of outstanding natural beauty in Devon, UK, and that has and remains a big inspiration for my landscapes, with the lush forests and woodland, winding rivers, reservoirs, moorlands and crop fields popping up in almost all my pieces. I largely focus on cotton and wool threads on felt sheets to recreate them but also experiment with paint and paper in some aerials. I’ve been through a lot of depressive patches in recent years and I find my embroidery very therapeutic – the repetition of stitches to build textures, pulling at the French knots and gentle smoothness of the satin stitch, it all helps keep my brain focussed and calm and I feel privileged I’m in a position where I can do what I love and makes me want to get up again each day as my job. ~ @victoriaroserichards